R. Scot Hockman has been a leader in South Carolina’s arts education community for more than 32 years as a middle school art teacher, as a writer and facilitator of state academic standards and curriculum guides, and as the Education Associate for the Visual and Performing Arts at the South Carolina Department of Education. As a classroom teacher he created model lessons and approaches that others adopted across the state. He has served as president of the South Carolina Art Education Association as well as the South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education. He was a writer of the 2003 South Carolina Visual Arts Curriculum Standards and Curriculum Guide. At the South Carolina Department of Education he has worked to maintain and improve the Arts Curricular Innovation Grants program and the expansion of Summer Professional Development Arts Institutes for teachers. He initiated the development and writing of Academic Standards for Media Arts while facilitating the revision of the 2010 Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts. In addition, he has created other tools which have helped improve arts education for students in South Carolina and brought positive national recognition to the Palmetto State. Numerous national organizations have tapped Scot’s expertise to inform nationwide programs and decision-making, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, U.S. Department of Education, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, States Education Agencies Directors of Arts Education, National Coalition for Core Arts Standards and the Arkansas Arts Council. In 2003, Scot was recognized as the National Arts Education Association Middle Level Art Educator of the Year. In addition, he received the Teacher of the Year Award from the South Carolina Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, Outstanding Professional Accomplishment Award from the South Carolina Consortium for Gifted Education, Piccolo Spoleto Special Recognition Award, the Columbia Museum of Art Mac Arthur Goodwin Award, and the Dance Advocacy Award from the South Carolina Dance Association.